The bookseller

"I came here from The Bookshop on Islington Green. Our first hit was when a Waterstone's opened opposite us, but somehow we managed to live with that. Then a big Borders opened and that was it – from day one we might as well have locked up.

"We manage here through keeping a good range, customer loyalty, and we can usually get anything they want very promptly. For the time being, we're doing all right. But I am not sure for how long. Things are changing so fast, and nobody can predict what happens next – just look at the music industry."

The publisher

Rebecca Nicolson

Co-founder of Short Books

"I can't say I'm surprised, there have been rumblings in the trade and in the press for some time about Borders, but I think it's sad for anyone interested in books to see a bookseller go to the wall.

There does seem to be a problem in the high street of a loss of spontaneity and creativity. It's all becoming slightly homogenous, with everyone chasing a dwindling market by providing what is perceived as the only thing the public wants, ie the next big celebrity biog.

It would be nice to think that this might lead to a change. It should be a time when somebody with a unique offer can get a chance."

The author

Amit Chaudhuri

Novelist, poet and musician, and professor of contemporary literature at the university of East Anglia.

"Borders was never as depressing as Waterstone's, but it was never quite as interesting as it could and should have been. What the big bookshops have is a sense of a large public space, like an art gallery, where you can wander around, stop for coffee, have a look at different things. Sometimes independent bookshops can feel too small, too precious.

"What one would really like to see would be a flourishing of smaller, smarter, more interesting, independent bookshopsthat felt like real places, not heritage sites.